


Seperated

by MystiTrinqua



Series: Voltron Ficnics [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Currently Klance if you squint, Full version will be full Klance when updated here, Gen, Gift Fic, Inspired By Tumblr, No seriously you have been warned, Rated for Pidge's language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 09:00:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11376924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MystiTrinqua/pseuds/MystiTrinqua
Summary: "When I go, I want all the information in my brain stored in a giant ship." - famous last words.-For and inspired by thegirlinthefandom's glorious art on tumblr.Currently a short version, full angst to follow.





	Seperated

**Author's Note:**

> http://thegirlinthefandom.tumblr.com/post/160829616669/when-i-go-i-want-all-the-information-in-my-brain - for the original image that inspired this work.   
> Anyone desiring to light the author on fire or poke with pitchforks can find me at mystitrinqua on tumblr.

When Keith woke up, the castle was silent.

The engines continued their background purr, the vibrations gently buzzing through the floor and the walls like they always had, but there was an air of uncanny quiet that had nothing to do with the amount of sound around him as he walked through the hallways. After the battle they had just gone through he was honestly surprised that he hadn’t woken up in healing pod. The thought brought with it a sickening lurch as he remembered just why the battle had been so hard. He remembered the shake in Lance’s voice as he bought them time, ignoring his normal tactic of staying on a high perch well out of any risk of melee combat so that he could act as a sniper and offer them covering fire, instead launching himself into the oncoming group of Galra soldiers. He told them that he would be okay, and he lied.

As he ran down the corridor deeper into the bowels of the ship, Keith remembered the way Allura’s hands shook as she tried to convince them that Lance would be okay as long as they could get his unconscious body back into a healing pod fast enough. He remembered the way Pidge was sobbing and cursing but Hunk was deathly silent beside her as the two of them trailed behind Shiro. Their leader carried Lance from his lion to the chamber that held the pods almost reverently, gone pale in a way that he hadn’t seen in Shiro since the first time they met again on that crashed escape pod on Earth. It had seemed like lifetimes ago but it could also only be six months, there was no way to tell how long it had been all the way out here so far from the shores of their home planet.

The others didn’t look like they had managed to sleep at all, Pidge’s arm in a slight where she’d almost dislocated her shoulder and most definitely torn a ligament. He wasn’t sure whether he’d been asleep or unconscious because the sight of the injury drew more of his hazy, scattered memories back into sharp focus. Fast, but not fast enough. Not fast when it _mattered_. He still had memories of launching himself into the tight group of Prince Lotor’s honour guard with the wrath of an avenging angel after running desperately towards the slim section of a blue-armoured back that was the only thing visible among a sea of deep purple.

“Lance?” He hated the way his voice shook. Pidge, alone and silent, didn’t look up from the floor she was staring at as she leant forward on the sofa, bent over. Hunk and Shiro where nowhere to be seen but all that meant is that they were probably either asleep, or in the room with the healing pods and already by Lance’s side. The steps he took towards the green paladin seemed to echo insanely loudly in the space, over the hum of the ship, over the hitch in Pidge’s breath. “Pidge. W-Where’s Lance?”

The pain in her eyes, red and sore from the tears that tracked down her already stained cheeks behind glasses he knew she didn’t actually need, made ice sink sharp claws into his heart.  
“He.. He’s gone.” She wasn’t even trying, whipping the glasses off and tossing them onto the sofa where Keith could remember a self satisfied Lance sinking down, getting comfy while he bragged about how far he’d managed to get Voltron to kick the wreckage of an alien ship, all that time ago. He’d made some sort of sarcastic response like he always did, a little more cutting than he intended, and watched as Lance retracted in on himself like a popped balloon. He didn’t think anything of it and now he couldn’t get it out of his head. “He’s g-gone, Keith. Gone. Lance isn’t h-here a-anymore, ever.” Pidge was struggling to get the words out around heaving breaths, her tiny frame quivering against the sofa as she wrapped the arm that still worked tightly against her side.

It didn’t make any sense, his head spinning as he took tiny steps backward until he felt himself hit the wall. Nowhere for him to go.  
Lance couldn’t just be gone. _He couldn’t._  
“W-What are you talking abo—”  
“—He’s fucking _dead_ , Keith!” Pidge’s voice cracked as she shrieked it but that wasn’t the reason Keith recoiled from her. “H-He’s dead, a-and we didn’t… we couldn’t.. t-there was nothing we could..”

Her sobs chased him out of the room and down the two flights of stairs to the healing pod chamber before he even knew where his feet were going. It was empty, powered down, and he didn’t even stop in the doorway as Pidge’s broken voice echoed in his head. Feet on autopilot he found himself drawn from spiralling thoughts as he skidded to a stop outside the training room. The clanging of metal-on-metal told him that it was Shiro beating the living hell out of whatever combat droid was set up, and he backed away from the door in silence. He wasn’t ready for that.  
Not when he had to know.

He couldn’t bring himself to accept the finality of Pidge’s words until he saw it for himself. By the time he’d stopped fighting, most of the Galra still unfortunate enough to be there dead and Lotor long slunk off into the shadows like the cowardly bastard that he was. There was _so much blood._ It had covered his hands, dripped off his armour, and almost all of it was human blood. _Lance’s blood_. He could taste the metallic sting again, now, as Allura saw him coming and silently gestured down a corridor with an ashen face. He followed blindly, lungs screaming for air he couldn’t seem to breathe in fast enough and eyes stinging.

When Keith found Lance, he was blue.  
Not blue like his lion, not blue like the ocean, not blue like his armour.

The bright neon blue of his whole body was one that Keith could see through, the green of his jacket and plain white of his t-shirt replaced with the blue light. Shaking fingers go straight through Lance’s hand as he reaches out, and in that moment it feels like the entire universe narrows down to the nonexistent space between the particles of the hologram and Keith’s own sickly pale skin.   
“Hi, Keith.”  
His knees buckle under him then, and he is only dimly aware that the person screaming into the dark corners of the room is himself. It could just be gross sobbing, the sound echoes and rebounds back on itself and at the same time Lance does not move. Lance smiles, looks straight ahead with eyes that see nothing and Keith knows that nothing they can do will bring him back. The castle is the only form of medicine that they have, and instead of saving his life all it could do was save him as data.


End file.
